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Tiny house, big dreams
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Content
Tiny House, Big Dreams
Architect Avideh Haghighi is retrofitting an old oil worker’s house
to become a house with zero emissions in Signal Hill.
Is she lighting a new path?
By Heidi Kalmari
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ANNENBERG SCHOOL
FOR COMMUNICATION AND JOURNALISM
In partial fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM)
May 2022
Copyright 2022 Heidi Kalmari
Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
ii
Table of Contents
List of Tables ............................................................................................................................................................. iii
List of Figures ............................................................................................................................................................ iii
Abstract ....................................................................................................................................................................... iv
Tiny House, Big Dreams ........................................................................................................................................ 1
Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................................ 22
Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
iii
List of Tables
Table 1. Odor complaints to South Coast Air Quality Management District 2016–2021. By
author.
List of Figures
Figure 1. Avideh Haghighi is gazing at the horizon in Hilltop Park in Signal Hill. By author.
Figure 2. The sign of Zerohouz in front of Haghighi’s house. By author.
Figure 3. Raymond Hernandez and Avideh Haghighi. By author.
Figure 4. Statue of oil workers in Hilltop Park in Signal Hill. By author.
Figure 5. Guava tree in Haghigi’s yard. By author.
Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
iv
Abstract
Architect Avideh Haghighi is doing what most of us should do: she is making a change in
the way she lives so that there would be zero greenhouse gas emissions. She is retrofitting
an old oil worker’s house in Signal Hill, California, to become a home that runs only on
renewable energy. After that mission is completed, she will reach even further, and try to
turn that tiny house into a living building where it would not take anything from nature
without giving back.
On the path towards a greener and more sustainable future, we need inspiring examples.
We know that people tend to start wanting the same things as their neighbors and make
similar choices to their friends as well as people that they admire.
In the United States, residential housing accounts for around 20 % of all greenhouse gas
emissions. Mostly the emissions derive from the energy that is used for heating, cooling,
lighting as well as using electricity for other appliances. The way our life is now, cutting
down energy consumption is not likely – quite the opposite. So, the number one target is to
move faster towards using energy that is clean and not derived from fossil fuels. For an
American homeowner, it means very often ditching the gas appliances and getting
electrical ones instead and utilizing renewable sources like wind and solar.
The transfer to clean, renewable energy is for many still too expensive and complicated a
process. This is also only mostly accessible to homeowners. But like in so many things in
life, trailblazers can point the way. Haghighi, who specializes in sustainable architecture, is
one of those trailblazers as her mission is not only to do it for herself but to share the
knowledge and learnings with a wider audience.
That is why Haghighi’s story is important to tell. May that – as well as this solution
journalism piece – be an inspiration to all of us.
Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
1
Tiny House, Big Dreams
Butterflies flutter in the bushes. It's a warm, drowsy Sunday afternoon. A young, brown-
eyed woman, with a hint of purple in her dark hair, sits on a concrete park bench, gazing
toward the Port of Long Beach below. A thin haze smudges the clear blue sky, obscuring the
horizon. A motorcycle roars by, breaking the silence. A couple is kissing on a nearby bench,
oblivious to everything but each other. But architect Avideh Haghighi is taking in the
remarkable view with a frown, seeing both the past and the future.
Here at Hilltop Park in Signal Hill, Southern California, members of the Tongva tribe used
signal fires
1
to communicate with other tribal members on Catalina Island. Then in the
1920s, huge deposits of oil were discovered here, rapidly transforming Signal Hill into a
center of the petroleum business. Now Haghighi gazes down at belching tailpipes and the
vessels steaming into port. Closer by you see houses, football fields, and schoolyards.
Haghighi looks carefully, but she can’t find what she is looking for.
“The sun is shining full-on, but I see zero solar panels.”
Haghighi is on a mission to change that view. By the end of the year, she is determined that
down among the houses will be at least one rooftop with panels: her own. Last year she
bought a 99-year-old house originally built for oil workers. She is retrofitting the house to
suit a new era: while making renovations to upgrade her house, she is also dropping fossil
fuels as a source of her home’s energy, exchanging them for renewable sources. In short,
this project is about cutting down her greenhouse gas emissions in her own home.
She hopes her home can be an example of what’s possible.
“The importance of my project is dawning on me little by little.”
1
“History of Signal Hill,” The City of Signal Hill, accessed March 14, 2022,
https://www.cityofsignalhill.org/218/History-of-Signal-Hill
Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
2
Figure 1. Avideh Haghighi is gazing at the horizon in Hilltop Park in Signal Hill, her new
hometown.
Avideh Haghighi is an architect specializing in sustainability. That means, as part of her
design work, she seeks to make zero greenhouse gas emissions but also to think differently
about the way we live and build so that it would support a more sustainable way of life. She
works at a big architecture firm focusing on commercial work, but she now wants to apply
her knowledge about net-zero to a house of her own.
Haghighi bought the house, which she calls Zerohouz, in March 2021. At that time, she
thought she would be done with the renovation and living in the house by that summer. But
that was way too optimistic.
In February 2022, as she sat on the hilltop park bench, she still hadn't moved in. Even the
renovation had not really started. The slowdown had to do with the supply chain crisis and
material shortage
2
, but also with the complications inherent in such a radical
transformation.
“With how things are going at the moment, my plan is to move in by the end of this year,”
Haghighi says, sighing.
2
“Record Number of Builders Report Material Shortages,” National Association of Home Builders, June 2, 2021,
https://nahbnow.com/2021/06/record-number-of-builders-report-material-shortages/
Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
3
Haghighi’s renovation is not only about building a dream house for herself but showing an
example. With the climate crisis moving rapidly there is an urgency to change the way
people live, not only in Signal Hill, and the United States but all around the world.
3
To turn an old house into zero emissions is a fundamental challenge of our time.
Residential and commercial buildings are responsible for 40 percent of the U.S. greenhouse
gas
4
emissions, making them the second-largest source of climate pollution in the state.
Residential buildings alone are responsible for around 20 percent
5
of the emissions. Most
of the emissions derive from heating and cooling with fossil fuels such as gas. Natural gas in
heating and cooling systems, water heaters, and stoves cause about 10% of California's
greenhouse gas emissions
6
. And to reach the goals President Biden has set to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions by 2030
7
, serious work needs to be done in the housing sector.
Making a home with zero emissions is making a transfer to renewable energy. For
Haghighi, it means getting rid of gas and gas appliances, replacing them with all electrical
appliances, and installing those solar panels on her roof.
The symbolism of retrofitting a house in the heart of a city built on a petroleum economy is
not lost on Haghighi.
“I think it couldn’t be more of an interesting coincidence,” Haghighi says. “But that has
made my vision even stronger.”
To work against an economy and culture with decades of powerful history twined together
with fossil fuels is not easy, though. Haghighi’s journey over the last 18 months shows why.
September 2021: Haghighi steps out of her orange Mini and looks up at her recent
purchase. It is a tiny box-shaped house with a large ficus shading the entrance. The walls
are gray, but on one of them, you can see testing squares of the new color. Haghighi wants
the house to be bright and joyful. So, maybe turquoise, pink, or orange?
3
“A roadmap to reducing greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent by 2030,” Stanford Woods Institute for the
Environment, Stanford University, September 20, 2019, https://earth.stanford.edu/news/roadmap-reducing-
greenhouse-gas-emissions-50-percent-2030#gs.tezuex
4
“Frequently Asked Questions, How much energy is consumed in U.S. buildings,” U.S Energy Information
Administration (EIA), Updated May 3, 2021, https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=86&t=1
5
Benjamin Goldstein, Dimitrios Gounaridis, and Joshua P. Newell, “The carbon footprint of household energy use
in the United States,” PNAS, Vol. 117 No. 32, July 20, 2022, https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1922205117
6
“Natural Gas Methane Emissions from California Homes, Final Project Report,” Edmund J. Brown Jr., Governor,
California Energy Commission, August, 2018, https://www.energy.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2021-06/CEC-500-
2018-021.pdf
7
“Fact sheet: President Biden Sets 2030 Greenhouse Gas Pollution Reduction Target Aimed at Creating Good-
Paying Union Jobs and Securing U.S. Leadership on Clean Energy Technologies,” The White House, April 22,
2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/22/fact-sheet-president-biden-sets-
2030-greenhouse-gas-pollution-reduction-target-aimed-at-creating-good-paying-union-jobs-and-securing-u-s-
leadership-on-clean-energy-technologies/
Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
4
The tiny two-bedroom house is located on the street corner and has a large, almost
disproportionate yard. A silently fluttering banner with a simple house-shaped logo of
Zerohouz is set right above the fence.
Figure 2. The sign of Zerohouz in front of Haghighi’s house tells neighbors where to look for
more information about what is going on.
“Many stop to ask more about my project,” Haghighi says. “It is fun to be able to share my
information. People are very interested. One man almost had an accident with his bicycle as
he was trying to read my sign.”
Haghighi walks the few steps up her walkway and opens the door with one hand, holding a
cup of coffee with the other. Inside, a bed with pink sheets greets her from the middle of the
small living room. The adjacent small bedroom is stuffed with half-opened boxes
containing most of her belongings. On the bed is Haghighi's anthem for the moment: Start
With Why, by Simon Sinek. The reading goes in line with Haghighi's central motivation in all
her work: she wants to be the one who questions things and does them differently if the old
habits are not valid anymore.
Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
5
“The reason I get out of bed every day is to create to the world I want to live in,” Haghighi
said in an interview with the American Institute of Architects
8
.
Just as Haghighi gets inside she hears that the guests for the day have arrived. A team of
energy engineers is here for an energy audit, a check-up on the insulation levels throughout
the house, and to identify what kind of improvements should be done.
“So, I’ll just walk you through the house,” Haghighi says, welcoming Raymond Hernandez
and his assistant from Absolute Efficiency Group.
As Haghighi takes Hernandez through the house, it becomes clear that small house or not,
there's plenty of work to retrofit the old house for net-zero living. And Haghighi does not
have a huge budget.
“The whole point is that I want to do this cost-effectively and show that other homeowners
can do this as well.”
The first step is what Hernandez calls a blower-door test, to determine the amount of air
leakage in the old house. The two men drape the entryway with a red tarp equipped with
an industrial blow dryer. Hernandez presses play from a remote control. The blower whirs
softly, and the team awaits the results, in about an hour.
Improving energy efficiency is essential to turning an old house into one with zero
emissions. But at the same time, there is so much more to do as well to bring the house up
to modern standards. For example, the flooring needs to be torn out, the home bolted to the
foundation – house bolting wasn't required in California until 1958
9
. Kitchen cabinets and
all appliances will be swapped out, and LED lights will replace halogens. She will also make
some adjustments to the floor plan. And everything she plans needs to be sustainable,
which means for example choosing as ecological materials as possible and avoiding
harmful chemicals.
“But it is a small house, so it is still manageable,” she says. “I don’t know how I would do
this if the house was much bigger.”
Haghighi wasn’t always drawn to green design. At Woodbury University in Burbank, she
once made a list of her architectural likes and dislikes. Among the dislikes: green buildings.
“We were aware of a lot of greenwashing at that time, and it just didn’t make sense to me,”
she recalls. By greenwashing she means architectural projects that give a false impression
of being environmentally friendly.
8
“Citizen architect Q&A, Avideh Haghighi, AIA,” American Institute of Architects, accessed March 11, 2022,
https://www.aialosangeles.org/news/news-and-blogs/avideh-haghighi-aia/
9
”California Code, Government Code – GOV § 8897”, FindLaw, accessed March 11, 2022,
https://codes.findlaw.com/ca/government-code/gov-sect-8897.html
Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
6
“I was seeing a lot of waste and a lot of inefficiencies, and I was beginning to get really
frustrated with the way we were designing things,” Haghighi says.
Instead, she believes, sustainability in architecture should be about linking buildings
together as “these systems function better than trying to solve everything in one building”.
So green building, according to Haghighi, should be most about sharing resources and
transforming them into a larger ecosystem. To get people to that level of thinking is a
mission to Haghighi, who also tours as a speaker in schools, universities, and conferences.
One step towards that goal is her modest but symbolic mission at her own house in Signal
Hill. There, sustainability comes from wholeness. A single grass-roof top or renewable
floor material won’t make a house ecological. Instead, it is about taking into account the
carbon footprint in every decision you make, and building a way of living around those
decisions.
“It is satisfying to do things with your own values and not compromise on them,” she says.
Hernandez has now moved on to check on possible leakages with an infrared camera. He
points it to the walls and to the corners.
“Both the interior and exterior walls are letting a lot of air in,” Hernandez says and shows
the screen of the camera to Haghighi.
“There, right there is a leakage.”
“Oh my god,” Haghighi reacts, sighing and laughing.
“It is an old house, so it is no wonder,” Hernandez says to comfort her. ”But it is still
standing!”
Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
7
Figure 3. Raymond Hernandez shows with his infrared camera where the air leakages are
around Haghighi’s house.
The results of the blower door test tell the same story. In Haghighi’s house, the number of
air changes per hour (ACH) is 19. In an average house, the number is six. For an energy-
efficient house: three.
“Oh my goodness,” Haghighi says. “This is terrible! This is something you don’t want.”
To retrofit an old house requires motivation, patience, and effort, but also money. Although
the change to all-electric, from the gas stove and heater to an electric heat pump water
heater (HPWH), might be reasonable in costs and labor, for older houses like Haghighi's
there's much more involved.
“There are challenges that come with that, because all of this stuff is outdated, like
plumbing and infrastructure,” Haghighi says. “So, you change out one thing, and it might
trigger you to upgrade a bunch of other things.”
Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
8
Consultant Sean Armstrong from Redwood Energy, which specializes in net-zero modeling,
is helping Haghighi with the planning of the electrification of her house. He says that the
change could cost as little as $2,000 but could reach nearly $20,000
10
.
“If you have money, you can spend it on getting yourself nicer and nicer appliances,”
Armstrong says. “But if you just need a couple of small heat pumps, it’s cheap.”
A way to save money is also to stay alert and double-check all the suggestions that the
contractors are giving her. For example, many contractors advised Haghighi to upgrade her
electricity panel. It would have cost her up to $6,000. Armstrong advised Haghighi first to
figure out exactly how big the electricity load would be.
“This was one of those cases where I just had to roll up my sleeves and be like, okay, I am
going to remind myself with amps and watts,” Haghighi says.
Learning to do the calculations was worth it. The energy load was not going to be that big,
and Haghighi will manage with the old panel. That is a huge saving for her.
Then there are many material costs, such as solar panel packages to the roof, which cost up
to $30,000, as well as all the electrical appliances, such as an induction stove and an electric
heat pump, that Haghighi estimates costing all together around $10,000
11
. Above material
costs, she must pay for all the contractors to get the work done. Haghighi says she has
prepared for a total of $60,000 for the renovation. That is a lot, although she will also get
advantages from pricing through her professional contacts. She's also promised to promote
some of her companions through the social media channels she built for Zerohaus.
With the high housing prices in Los Angeles, this kind of renovation is not so tempting to
most people.
“The people who can afford a home can often just barely pay their mortgage payments, so
they are rarely volunteering to make upgrades to their home,” Haghighi says. “Unless
something is not working.”
Then there is the challenge of finding the right contractors. The post-pandemic time has
created another obstacle as material resourcing has become a challenge and quality
workers are fully booked. Also, prices for materials increased during the pandemic. As
people stayed home the demand for renovation supplies increased at the same time as
there were delays in production. Most recently, rising prices have added another obstacle.
“I am spending a lot of time and energy finding the right people,” Haghighi says. The
challenge for her especially is to find contractors that are not only free and with a good
price level, but also can help her with the transition to renewable energy and electrical
10
Sean Armstrong, an email message to author, November 22, 2021.
11
Avideh Haghighi, an email message to author, March 8, 2022.
Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
9
appliances. “Mostly I am finding them through my industry contacts, but I can’t imagine
what an ordinary homeowner would do if even I am having this hard time.”
Justin Di Palo, a mechanical engineer at Syska Hennessy Group, says that most contractors
still recommend the same things 30 years ago, and are missing holistic knowledge. Many
things are fixed with as little effort as possible.
“So, then those opportunities for energy efficiency and all-electrics are just missed,” Di Palo
says.
California has a reputation as a leading state in solving the climate crisis and moving
forward to a carbon-neutral future – a future without leaning on fossil fuels. In many ways
the reputation is well-deserved, but in supporting the transmission to zero emissions in
buildings, the way is still bumpy and filled with roadblocks.
For example, despite the hype, new net-zero buildings create only a small fraction of the
total amount of housing. According to Team Zero, a non-profit, California is the leading
state in net carbon-zero housing, but the total number of units is very small; barely
11,000
12
are 100 % solar-powered, less than one percent of the 1.4 million buildings in
California with some solar installations
13
.
Some counties and cities in California have been taking more steps forward than others.
But across the state, the ride could have been faster. The story of the state’s road towards
electricity-based construction is very much a story about energy prices and favoring the
American oil and fossil fuel industry.
According to Armstrong from Redwood Energy, all-electric construction was very popular
in California until 1973. In the 1950s, there was for example running a movement that had
an advertising campaign called “Live Better Electrically”
14
. The oil crisis in 1973 changed
15
the situation as energy prices rose sky-high, and due to that pressure leaders ended up
deregulating American oil and coal mining with the consequence of starting a fossil fuel
boom
16
. This effected that fossil fuels remained as the primary source of energy for
12
“Team Zero Inventory of Zero Homes in the US and Canada 2019-2020,” Team Zero,
https://teamzero.org/inventory-of-zero-energy-homes/
13
“California Solar, Data Current Through: Q4 2021,” SEIA Solar Energy Industries Association,
https://www.seia.org/state-solar-policy/california-solar
14
“Live Better Electrically: The Gold Medallion Electric Home Campaign,” Dept of Archaeology + Historic
Preservation, Accessed March 14, 2022, https://dahp.wa.gov/historic-preservation/historic-buildings/historic-
building-survey-and-inventory/live-better-electrically-the-gold-medallion-electric-home-campaign
15
Michael Corbett, “Oil Shock of 1973-74,” Federal Reserve History, Written as November 22, 2013,
https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/oil-shock-of-1973-74
16
“Electrification Guide for Large Commercial Buildings,” Redwood Energy, 2019, 3,
https://fossilfreebuildings.org/ElectricNewCommercialConstructionGuide.pdf
Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
10
electricity, and there was no necessary need to hurry the move towards electrical
appliances in homes.
Another stop, or at least slow down, for the construction based on electricity was the
energy crisis in 2000
17
.
“That made the state favor again, for example, water heaters that run on gas instead of
electricity,” Armstrong says.
Of course, going for electrical appliances in itself is not directly a greener option as you can
still get your energy from fossil fuels. But electrification paves the way for renewable
energy as you can’t connect solar power to a heat pump that is designed to run with gas.
Armstrong says that all these events and policies have slowed down the progress towards
cleaner energy use in construction.
“And it has worked. Only one percent of new construction between 2010 and 2018 was all-
electric.
”
On the other hand, some other crises in recent years have had the opposite effect. One is
the wildfires, which sometimes get started due to gas leaks or poorly maintained
equipment by the gas companies. In the Paradise Fire in Northern California in 2018, the
cause of the fire was a fault in the powerline operated by Pacific Gas and Electricity
(PG&E)
18
. The aftermath of this particular fire sparked new policies that did not favor
fossil-fuel-based construction. For example, in 2019 the city of Berkeley became the first
city in the U.S.
19
to ban natural gas in new buildings
20
.
“This forced the state to finally make an all-electric building code option on the side of the
gas-oriented one,” Armstrong says. “About 15 % of Californians live now in a city that has
banned gas, but for example, Los Angeles is not among those 50 cities yet.”
17
“Subsequent Events California’s Energy Crisis,” U.S Energy Information Administration, Accessed March 14,
2022, https://www.eia.gov/electricity/policies/legislation/california/subsequentevents.html
18
“CAL FIRE Investigators Determine Cause of the Camp Fire,” California Department of Forestry and Fire
Protection, News Release May 15, 2019, https://www.fire.ca.gov/media/5121/campfire_cause.pdf
19
Susie Cagle, “Berkeley became the first US city to ban natural gas. Here’s what that may mean for the future,”
The Guardian, July 23, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/23/berkeley-natural-gas-ban-
environment
20
“City of Berkeley Natural Gas Prohibition & Reach Code for Electrification,” Planning and Development
Department Office of Energy and Sustainability, December 2019,
https://www.cityofberkeley.info/uploadedFiles/Planning_and_Development/Level_3_-
_Energy_and_Sustainable_Development/Berkeley%20Energy%20Reach%20Code%20for%20Electrification%20an
d%20Natural%20Gas%20Prohibition%209-27-19.pdf
Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
11
More pressure on gas banning gives also concern about people’s health. Cooking with gas
has for example proven to worsen indoor air quality, and according to several studies, it
brings a higher risk for children experiencing
21
asthma symptoms.
Still, innovative changes are afoot in Los Angeles County. The situation differs throughout
the county. Some cities are already determining proper incentives for replacing gas
appliances with electric alternatives. For example, the City Council of Santa Monica has a
program
22
targeting people who would most need the incentives.
And there is an increasing push for demanding that all new buildings should be zero-
carbon. For example, Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman has introduced new
legislation
23
for all new construction in Los Angeles to achieve zero-carbon emissions. On
top of all that, Governor Gavin Newsom has set a goal in his Green New Deal
24
that all new
buildings would be zero-carbon by 2030, and every building by 2050. The “solar mandate”
of California already requires a solar system to be built in all newly built homes
25
and
commercial buildings
26
.
New buildings lead the way in electrification, but in the big picture, the true challenge
27
in
cutting down emissions in housing is retrofitting the nearly 14 million homes in the state.
That is why for example the advocacy group Sierra Club is actively campaigning for
building electrification.
“What is done in the commercial sector in terms of sustainability and addressing climate
change compared to what is happening in the housing sector has a huge gap in between,”
says Di Palo from Syska Hennessy Group.
“So, there is not a lot of guidance out there, and that is why it is so great that Avideh
Haghighi is leading the way and showing an example.”
21
“Gas Stoves are Making People Sicker and Exposing Children to a Higher Risk for Asthma, Study Claims,”, The
Science Times, May 6, 2020, https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/25590/20200506/gas-stoves-making-people-
sicker-exposing-children-higher-risk-asthma.htm
22
Madeleine Pauker, “City Hall to encourage replacing gas appliances with electric alternatives,” Santa Monica
Daily Press, September 16, 2019, https://www.smdp.com/carbon-reduction-goals-are-not-cooking-with-gas/179818
23
“Los Angeles looks to make all new buildings in city zero-carbon,” City News Service, Spectrum News 1,
February 9, 2022, https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/la-west/politics/2022/02/09/los-angeles-looks-to-make-all-new-
buildings-in-city-zero-carbon
24
“Green New Deal Plan, Targets,” L.A.’s Green New Deal Sustainability Plan 2019, Accessed March 14, 2022,
https://plan.lamayor.org/
25
“Title 24: What Are California’s Solar Mandates for 2022?,” Simply Solar, January 27, 2022,
https://simplysolar.com/blog/california-solar-mandates-2020/
26
Ivan Penn, “California Backs Solar Mandate for New Buildings,” The New York Times, August 11, 2021,
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/11/business/energy-environment/california-solar-mandates.html
27
Srinidhi Sampath Kumar, and Panama Bartholomy, “Retrofitting homes, small businesses for clean energy
appliances will stimulate economy and fight climate change,”, Calmatters, June 26, 2020,
https://calmatters.org/commentary/my-turn/2020/06/retrofitting-homes-small-businesses-for-clean-energy-
appliances-will-stimulate-economy-and-fight-climate-change/
Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
12
To figure out how to speed up the change, California could peek at what the small city of
Ithaca, N.Y., is doing. In November 2021 the Common Council of the city approved a plan
28
,
that would see all 6,000 of Ithaca’s buildings, private and public, to use only electrical
appliances. The plan
29
is part of efforts to completely decarbonize the city by 2030.
In Ithaca, like in Los Angeles, many houses are old. About 40% of residential buildings were
built before the 1920s and are in the need of major renovations. Sounds very much like
Haghighi’s house.
What is exceptional in Ithaca’s plan is the unprecedented speed: to retrofit 6,000 buildings
in eight years required a lot of money. Behind the ambitious plan is the city’s Chief of
Sustainability, Luis Aguirre-Torres, who has raised on top of the $80 million city budget
already $100 million from private investors
30
. (But still, at least $450 million more is
needed.)
“The fact that you have a whole bunch of private capital coming in and making the
economics of projects work well is, of course, important for the scalability and
replicability,” says Panama Bartholomy, Director of Building Decarbonization Coalition.
Bartholomy says making the shift to zero emissions in housing requires multiple things to
change at the same time. One is to spread awareness both to consumers and to
policymakers, and the other is to create a market, where the electric options are cheaper
than the gas options.
“And these need to be for both, the ones who are buying and the ones who are operating,”
he says. “The companies need to make money off of it.”
The shift in the market will require help from policymakers. Ithaca provides an example, as
do many cities in California. Los Angeles though is a bit behind. Bartholomy says it is
because of the powerful position of gas companies.
“There is a lot of pressure in Los Angeles from Southern California Gas Company as well as
from the unions,” he says. “But we need to be putting money where our mouth is, and make
sure that we are incentivizing the thing we are trying to create, like achieving our climate
goals.”
28
Tanner Harding, “Ithaca becomes first city in U.S. to try and electrify all buildings,” Ithaca.com, November 9,
2021, https://www.ithaca.com/news/ithaca/ithaca-becomes-first-city-in-u-s-to-try-and-electrify-all-
buildings/article_03c6e998-41bb-11ec-9a84-47a7c90ee120.html
29
“Ithaca Green New Deal, Carbon-neutral Community-wide by 2030,” City of Ithaca Mayor’s Office, June 5,
2019, https://www.cityofithaca.org/DocumentCenter/View/11054/IGND-Summary-02-11-2020
30
Tik Root, “This U.S. city just voted to decarbonize every single building,” The Washington Post, November 3,
2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2021/11/03/ithaca-new-york-decarbonize-electrify/
Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
13
Haghighi says, although there are many different incentive programs in California
31
, she
still hasn’t found many suitable incentives for her renovation. She planned to get a rebate
from SCE for a heat pump water heater but was notified that this program has just ended.
The utility companies, such as LADWP, SCE, and PG&E, do have incentives for switching
over to more energy-efficient appliances, but for most of them, there is an income cap.
“Also, there aren't any residential incentives for upgrading your entire house to use only
electrical appliances,” Haghighi says. “At least for whole-house upgrades, there are
incentives for multi-family house builders and commercial buildings, but not single-family
residential homes.”
Retrofitting an oil worker’s house is especially symbolic in a city like Signal Hill, which was
largely built by the petroleum business. Daniel Yergin writes in his book The Prize
32
that by
1923, so much oil was discovered in Signal Hill that it quickly made California the nation’s
number-one oil-producing state.
Those were crazy times.
“When they discovered oil, it was like the gold rush,” says a long-time resident Marv Haney
in a video documentary Oil in Signal Hill by Dennis Morawski
33
. “Men came from all over
like my father coming from Texas. Everybody had this dream of making money in Long
Beach.”
New urban derricks were built almost daily. The reckless pace of exploration often led to
drilling. Sometimes the oil would pour from the wells like rain, drenching chickens, houses,
and drying laundry, making them black.
Oil was a promise of a better life. It also transformed nearby Long Beach. Before the
discovery of the black gold, it was a sleepy and quiet town, known as a place to go for a
holiday. But as people came rushing from all over the country the area grew into a busy
city. No wonder it started to loom large in the eager eyes of real estate developers, Yergin
writes:
“Many of the lots, though already sold to prospective homeowners, were not yet built upon,
and money flew all over the hills as oil companies, promoters, and amateurs scrambled to get
leases. The parcels were so small and the forest of tall wooden derricks so thick that the legs of
31
“California Solar Rebates and Incentives,” CleanEnergyAuthority.com, last updated March 26, 2019,
https://www.cleanenergyauthority.com/solar-rebates-and-incentives/california
32
Daniel Yergin, The Prize (Free Press, 1991/ Paperback 2009), 202.
33
Dennis Morawski, “Oil in Signal Hill,” Youtube, posted August 17, 2017 by Robbie Diaz,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd5bpBAofac
Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
14
many of them actually interlaced. So keen were the would-be drillers that some property
owners were able to get a 50 percent royalty.”
34
The boom was followed by busy years, where oil
became the lifeblood of Signal Hill. The industry
created a culture around it. One of the landmarks of
the prosperous years was the Long Beach Petroleum
Club, established in 1954. Oilmen would stop in for
lunch as oil companies wined and dined their guests.
Members and their guests, like former Los Angeles
Ram Ben Agajanian
35
, would also come and spend an
evening playing gin rummy while the swing bands
invited couples to sway on the dance floor.
Neighborhood kids loved the swimming pool in the
backyard. On one wall was a huge mural
representing the city scenery from 1925 with so
many derricks, they looked like a thick forest.
The Petroleum Club closed in 2019, but there are
plans to reopen
36
, so the dancing might start again.
Yet the region's petroleum culture is not so visible
anymore as thousands of wells have been capped
and abandoned
37
. Still, oil is not just history here.
On Cherry Avenue, the main road of Signal Hill, the
big steely pumpjacks, which are often described as
silently nodding donkeys, operate between the
commercial stores, for example in the backyard of McDonald’s, next to the organic grocery
store Mother’s Market. Only a few blocks away from Avideh Haghighi’s house you still see
multiple pumpjacks all around, alongside residential homes and walking trails.
In the 1920s, the first company to operate in Signal Hill was the Royal Dutch Shell
Company, and in 1984 the Barto Oil Company founded Signal Hill Petroleum
38
. The gas and
34
Yergin, The Prize, 202.
35
Sam Farmer, “Ben Agajanian, one-time L.A. Ram who changed placekicking, dies at 98,” Los Angeles Times,
February 13, 2018, https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ben-agajanian-20180213-story.html
36
Tim Grobaty, “Bixby Knolls’ Petroleum Club gets a reprieve from the wrecking ball and will reopen,” Long
Beach Post News, November 5, 2020, https://lbpost.com/news/city/bixby-knolls-petroleum-club-gets-a-reprieve-
from-the-wrecking-ball-and-will-reopen
37
J. Michael Kennedy, ‘Curtains for Cafe? : Business: Changing times in Signal Hill may doom landmark
from oil boom days,’ Los Angeles Times, July 5, 1995, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-
07-05-me-20357-story.html
38
“Our history,” Signal Hill Petroleum, Accessed March 14, 2022, https://www.shpi.net/about-us/our-history.aspx
Figure 4. The history of the petroleum
business in Signal Hill is praised in the
Hilltop Loop Trail.
Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
15
energy company is still operating in high volumes, producing over one million barrels of
39
oil annually.
“Everywhere in Southern California you’re living on top of oil fields, the difference is that
the subgrade of all of this land and Signal Hill has been owned by the oil company,”
Haghighi says. “So, they have access under your house to still pump, wherever you are in
the city.”
Along the Hilltop Loop Trail are located some historical panels telling stories and facts of
the oil history in the area as well as a statue of two oil men.
For Haghighi, the active oil sites so near her new apartment were something that she had to
consider before she bought her house. She spent a few sleepless nights, worrying if these
wells would cause her health problems.
In Signal Hill there are still numerous active oil wells, and in Los Angeles County all
together there are still over five thousand active oil wells contributing to poor air quality
40
and causing severe health problems such as asthma and other diseases
41
.
“Nowhere else in the United States are people living this close to oil production sites,” says
Jill Johnston, an assistant professor of Population and Public Health Sciences at USC.
Haghighi did some research and calmed down when she discovered from some of the maps
that the pumpjacks were located at a safe distance from her home. And that many of them
were not active anymore. California Governor Gavin Newsom has set goals for phasing out
neighborhood drilling
42
, an issue multiple advocacy groups have fought for years.
Despite these assurances and promises of changes to come, Haghighi is surprised about her
neighbors' attitude toward oil drilling in their neighborhood. She has a hard time getting
over the fact that people live so close to oil pumps.
“If you walk out the street and ask anybody about the oil rigs, they’ll say, what is the big
deal?” Haghighi says.
39
“Oil and gas operations overview,” Signal Hill Petroleum, Accessed March 14, 2022, https://www.shpi.net/about-
us/our-history.aspx
40
“Infographic: Neighborhood drilling,” USC Environmental Health Centers, Accessed March 14, 2022,
https://envhealthcenters.usc.edu/infographics/infographic-neighborhood-oil-drilling
41
Leigh Hopper, “L.A.’s legacy of oil drilling impacts lung function in residents living near active and inactive
wells,” USC News, April 15, 2021, https://news.usc.edu/184929/urban-oil-wells-drilling-lung-health-los-angeles-
usc-research/
42
“California Moves to Prevent New Oil Drilling Near Communities, Expand Health Protections,” News Release,
Office of Governor Gavin Newsom, October 21, 2021, https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/10/21/california-moves-to-
prevent-new-oil-drilling-near-communities-expand-health-protections-2/
Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
16
But the people in Signal Hill also have it a little better. For example in Carson and
Wilmington, the neighboring areas just on the other side of the I-710 freeway, the
neighborhood drilling, and the oil refineries have been causing residents major health
problems for decades
43
.
Ray Cheung, the founder of SmartAirLA, a community-based initiative that collects data on
air pollution around the area, says that the biggest polluters in Carson and Wilmington are
the refineries, which they don’t have in Signal Hill.
Residents in Signal Hill are middle-class and well-educated.
44
According to Census data, the
median household income for around 11,000 residents is approximately $75,500. Over half
of the residents are white and homeowners with the median value of a housing unit over
$500,000. This is about what Haghighi paid for her house.
For a homeowner, living on top of active oil fields has had its benefits too. In Signal Hill and
across Southern California, residents have received royalties from the oil and gas
infrastructure that runs under their homes.
“Usually that trust is conveyed to new owners of a home, but sometimes the seller would
keep it and not sell that to buyers,” says realtor Karey Hannegan.
Hannegan says that this benefit is not offered to Haghighi, because there are no wells under
her home.
Oil companies in the neighborhood are also expected to follow the city’s Oil and Gas Code,
which sets standards for drilling. On the city website, residents are encouraged to report on
any odor issue or other inconvenience.
Public records of the South Coast Air Quality Management District show that the people in
Signal Hill are not making many complaints of odor, and at least a lot fewer than the
residents in Wilmington. During the years 2016 to 2021 the South Coast AQMD received 15
times more complaints from Wilmington than from Signal Hill.
45
43
Jill Johnston et. al. “Oil and Gas Extraction in Los Angeles and Public Health Evidence,” letter to Eric Garcetti,
Mayor of Los Angeles, October 11, 2019,
https://www.oxy.edu/sites/default/files/assets/UEP/letter_city_oil_report_health_impacts_10.11.19.pdf
44
“Quick Facts, Signal Hill city, California,” U.S. Census Bureau, accessed March 11, 2022,
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/signalhillcitycalifornia
45
Colleen Paine, Public Records Coordinator at SCAQMD, data received by email to author, October 7, 2021.
Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
17
Table 1. Odor complaints to South Coast Air Quality Management District 2016–2021.
Except for the worry of possible personal health problems, oil drilling is not a direct obstacle
for Haghighi’s retrofit project. But the attitudes attached to the old oil culture might be. She
wonders for example if the strong position of the petroleum business in the city explains
why there are few incentives for retrofitting.
“When I scrolled the areas in many of the incentive programs I thought of applying to, Signal
Hill was never on the list.”
In December 2021, just before Christmas, Haghighi is all excited. One of the things she loves
the most about in her house is the large yard. It reminds her of her childhood in Iran.
Haghighi’s family moved to Los Angeles when she was 12 years old.
The yard that she remembers in Tehran was not so large, but for a little girl, it felt big. It
was in front of her family's condo apartment with thick green grass, two big kidney-shaped
planters, and three trees: a cherry, a persimmon, and a walnut. Together with her younger
sister and their cousin they hung out under the shade of the branches and leaves.
“I remember us spending hours there and just creating our own dream worlds,” Haghighi
says. “That was my little oasis.”
Now, at the age of 35, Haghighi is creating an oasis of her own. And as the renovation inside
the house has been delayed, Haghighi has started to work on the yard.
Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
18
She got rid of some of the thick and invasive Bermuda grass, suffocating it under black
plastic because thirsty Bermuda grass didn’t go together with Haghigi’s values of
biodiversity and sustainability.
“And it is also practically impossible to plant
anything on top of it,” she says.
Haghighi wants to plant a lot of succulents,
including ice plants with their small purple
flowers. She might also have a little vegetable
garden under the shade of the ficus tree beside the
front door. Some plants are already in the ground,
like a couple of Giant Bird of Paradise trees.
Haghighi finds the graphic structure of the yellow
flowers fascinating. Along with them are some
Kangaroo Paws, which are reminiscent of the
plants in her childhood home in the Middle East.
“I have always loved these,” she explains. “They
are fuzzy and come in so many colors.”
The garden is part of the even bigger vision for her
home: to make it into a living building. That means
that the building does not take anything from
nature without giving back, and it operates sort of
like a living organism.
Figure 5. The new guava tree in Haghigi’s yard is taller than she is and has already given
some first fruits.
“Going for zero emissions and shifting to electrical appliances is just the preliminary step I
am taking,” Haghighi says. “In the end, I would like to be net positive and that would
require me to be in some ways self-sufficient and do, for example, composting.”
To reach that level Haghighi would have to be not only self-sufficient with energy but for
water as well. And in sunny, drought-prone Southern California, that is trickier to
implement. She plans to install a greywater system, which reuses wastewater to irrigate – a
plan she developed in college, much to the skepticism of professors who preferred designs
for “shiny new buildings.”
A little bit further from the new plants stands a fruit tree. It is not a persimmon, cherry, or
walnut tree like she had in her family's yard in Tehran, but a guava tree.
Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
19
“This is a unique fruit, and it does well in the climate,” Haghighi says. The tree is still young,
so she has tasted only the first of young fruits. “And I can just pick the fruits off the tree and
enjoy them. You don’t need to peel or anything.” Her eyes start to sparkle with excitement
every time she starts to talk about her garden.
The pink sheets still cover the mattress in the living room, just like they did three months
earlier. Sometimes Haghighi has stayed for the night, but last time it was very cold, and she
had to ask the gas to be turned on again for a while. That annoyed her as she has been so
devoted to going zero emissions.
“The gas guy could not understand why I was so upset about it,” Haghighi says, laughing
while sitting on a folding chair and pulling up her laptop. She scrolls through the floor
plans, which she has been working on lately. This is the part which she enjoys most in this
project – creating and drawing. She is an architect, after all.
“I have to explore all the options to make sure I am doing the right thing,” she explains.
She has at least seven options, from the cheap and simple ones all the way to “wild
options,” like relocating the kitchen or turning the house into a one-bedroom instead of
two. These are less likely, however: she has a budget to follow. She also wants to respect
the original nature of the house.
“I don’t want to change it too much as then the retrofit would not make sense,” she says.
“Then I could have just gotten it demolished and built a totally new one instead.”
“Where is my water cup?”
Haghighi walks back and forth and peeks behind and under the Hill Park bench. In
February 2022, after marveling at the view of the harbor below, it is time to walk back to
the house. But she needs to find her cup.
“This is me trying to be sustainable, but I keep losing these reusable cups,” she says,
amused.
She locates it right behind the statue of oil workers. Haghighi stops for a second. She looks
around the expensive-looking houses surrounding the park.
“These are at least million-dollar houses, but look, pumpjacks are practically right in front
of their entrance,” she says. “I wish I knew if it bothers them or not.”
Walking down the hill, cup in hand, she explains how she has new worries with the solar
panels. Until now the deal has been that if you produce more energy than you consume, the
extra can be sold to the grid. Now the grid companies may charge a monthly fee from
Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
20
homeowners to connect their panels to the grid. That would make using solar power too
expensive for Haghighi.
“They are doing this because they don’t want more solar power to the grid, because it is
getting overloaded and they don’t want to invest in updating it,” Haghighi says. “Instead,
they are encouraging homeowners to get battery systems that can store the extra power.
But those systems are expensive as well.”
Haghighi is aware that the policy change that is being discussed is a big and complex issue,
which has its pros and cons. It is also an issue that former governor of California, Arnold
Schwarzenegger is opposing and calls it a “solar tax”.
46
But for a homeowner and a
renovator with a budget like Haghighi, it’s yet another thing to recalculate and rethink. A
few steps forward, a couple of steps back. That is what change is about.
For Haghighi, making the renovation is about leading the way. On the Hilltop Park, she
envisioned how one day the seafront would be full of windmills instead of oil derricks, how
all the trucks from the port would leave silently, using only electricity as a power source.
All her neighbors would charge their cars with renewable electricity. The haze would be
gone.
Haghighi says her role is to instigate and question the standard that has been business as
usual. With her small house, there are many things she can’t change. But one by one she
thinks also the bigger obstacles will be overcome.
“Once transportation changes, I can guarantee that all these houses and homeowners have
electric cars because that’s the only option,” Haghighi says. “They're going to be thinking
about where to charge my car? Once they start thinking about that, they're thinking about
what energy is my house using. How much energy am I using? How big is my electrical
panel? They're going to have to think about all of that.”
For Haghighi, the change is not about forgetting history, but pivoting towards a cleaner
future. During the years when people rushed to Signal Hill for oil, it was about being part of
a change and having hopes about a brighter future.
“I think that people had genuinely good intentions as it was about creating prosperity,”
Haghighi wonders.
But the downside of that prosperity is the problems that Haghighi and the rest of us need to
solve. And for that change, there is a need for the same energy and excitement that people
had in the times of Signal Hill's golden years.
“So, wouldn't it be great to continue that idea into the next phase of energy? That would be
something amazing for the town.”
46
Arnold Schwarzenegger, ‘We Put Solar Panels on 1 Million Roofs in California. That Win Is Now Under
Threat.’, Opinion Essay, New York Times, January 17, 2022.
Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
21
She is back in her yard again, now kneeling to admire the tiny yellow flowers that have
popped out. It is a weed, a beautiful one, which came naturally from the soil after the rain.
Haghighi plans to keep it and let it grow and expand.
Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
22
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Tiny House, Big Dreams – Heidi Kalmari – Master’s Thesis
26
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Kalmari, Heidi Marie
(author)
Core Title
Tiny house, big dreams
School
Annenberg School for Communication
Degree
Master of Arts
Degree Program
Specialized Journalism
Degree Conferral Date
2022-05
Publication Date
04/22/2022
Defense Date
04/21/2022
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
Architecture,climate change,OAI-PMH Harvest,Oil Industry,retrofitting,solar power,zero emissions
Format
application/pdf
(imt)
Language
English
Contributor
Electronically uploaded by the author
(provenance)
Advisor
Tolan, Sandy (
committee chair
)
Creator Email
heidi.kalmari@gmail.com,kalmari@usc.edu
Permanent Link (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC111099210
Unique identifier
UC111099210
Document Type
Thesis
Format
application/pdf (imt)
Rights
Kalmari, Heidi Marie
Type
texts
Source
20220425-usctheses-batch-932
(batch),
University of Southern California
(contributing entity),
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
(collection)
Access Conditions
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Repository Name
University of Southern California Digital Library
Repository Location
USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA
Repository Email
cisadmin@lib.usc.edu
Tags
climate change
retrofitting
solar power
zero emissions